Amerika (31 page)

“Petya! He took my son! And God knows what he would have done if I’d been there. It’s me he hates, Petya, me he wants to destroy.”

“You betrayed him,” the Russian said matter-of-factly.

“That is not the issue. He has committed many crimes. He has shown that reeducation will not stop him. He has shown how dangerous he is—” She stopped, feeling as though that were more than enough.

“You loved him once,” Petya said, evenly.

“For God’s sake, Petya. Will you support me or not?” Petya watched a colt trotting playfully across the frosted field beside its mother. Marion stared at him furiously.

“It is a political matter,” he said. “Talk to Andrei.” “Andrei sees Devin as some sort of American saint. He is entirely irrational.”

“Andrei’s instincts are good. Talk to him when you’re back in Chicago. Then we’ll talk again.” Marion stared at Petya, her face clouded.

Petya smiled. “Everything will be fine.”

She shook her head slowly. “You’re keeping something from me.”

“No. You have as much information as I do.”

“I don’t mean about Devin; I mean about you, about—”

“Why do you think this, Marion?”

“You’ve never let me know everything,” she said. He smiled at her. “And you?”

“More than everything.”

“Ultimately there are things none of us knows.

Ultimately, no matter how much we think we know, or plan, there is always the unexpected.” He shrugged, opening his arms to her. She went into them, his arms encircling her tenderly. “Be well, my little American. Soon, who knows, you may be leading your own country.”

Marion stepped back, smiling. “Why is it, every time we part, I feel that I will never see you again?”

“One time it will be true.”

They heard the chatter of a helicopter landing in front of the mansion. He pushed her gently away. She started to move toward the door, then turned back to him. He had walked to the window.

“Petya,” she said quietly. He turned from the window. “Do we love each other?”

He laughed, not at her vulnerability, but in sympathy, charmed. “Of course we do. Lovers and comrades.”

“I betrayed my husband—with you,” she said, reluctant to leave.

“For
you.
For the cause,” he said wryly. “And we were a wonderful result.”

She smiled and walked out the door. He turned back to the window and watched her climb into the helicopter. She waved. He waved back as the helicopter took flight, cutting across the cold, gray sky.

Once again, Devin heard the rattle of keys, the heavy metallic banging of a cell door. He stood and saw the SSU officer looming in the doorway.

“Mr. Milford? This way, please.”

So now they were sweetness and light again. The first ones, the PPP thugs, had handcuffed and beaten him, then some sort of struggle ensued—they fought over him, like dogs over a bone—and the SSU had brought him here. They cleaned him up, fed him, and treated him like visiting royalty. They had interrogated him, yes, but routinely; they asked the questions and he answered them by rote. He was playing the game now, not fighting, determined to stall them as long as he could.

The SSU officer and two of his men led Devin down a long underground corridor and into a parking garage, where a van awaited them.

They opened the rear of the van, Devin stepped inside, and they locked the doors behind him. The truck shot up the ramp onto the rain-wet, deserted Chicago streets.

Ironically, Devin Milford himself was one of the few people in Chicago who did not know where Devin Milford was headed that morning. News of his impending trial had been widely disseminated by Natnet; in their telling, after all, the story of his “attack” on his own children made wonderful propaganda. Here was this renegade Resister—so the official version went— who was so pathetically envious of his former wife’s political enlightenment and subsequent rise to prominence, that he struck back at her in the most cowardly way imaginable. . . . That Magistrate Marion Milford Andrews would herself be presiding at the trial lent a soupgon of intrigue to the proceeding that neither press nor public could resist.

Not that the entire public was seduced by the official version of events. To those who still remembered the Devin Milford of 1992, the charges against him seemed ludicrous. Among the Resisters, support for the framed man was strong, and the kangaroo court provided a welcome forum for protest. Jeffrey, Cliff, Kimberly— who had persuaded Jeffrey to let her come along—and their comrades in the Chicago movement had been working to make sure that Devin’s trial would not be a quiet affair. By the time the black van covered the six blocks from the SSU security building to the Cook County courthouse, sympathizers were lined up three-deep on the cold sidewalks.

Devin crouched in the van, tense, wondering what lay ahead. He’d broken many of their laws; he’d break more given the chance. But he was tired.

They had driven only a block when he heard the faint sound of clapping. It snuck up on him; he thought for a moment it was rain on the roof of the truck. He listened more closely and realized it was the sound of people clapping, a lot of people, as his van passed along the streets. It didn’t register at first that the clapping had anything to do with him, and he idly wondered what there was out there that everybody could agree on.

Jeffrey, now in his role as the perfect citizen, had his Natnet mobile unit positioned at the courthouse steps. Riot police lined the street. Jeffrey, too, was amazed at the turnout. He had hoped for dozens but there were hundreds here and more streaming in every minute. The rhythmic applause echoed off the buildings around the courthouse square. He could see the confusion, the panic, on the faces of the police. Jeffrey’s heart raced with excitement as the black van rounded the comer.

He nodded to his cameraman to start rolling; this would be one of those times when the picture would tell the real story and no one would be deceived for long by the words he was forced to say. “The van bringing the infamous Devin
Milf
ord to justice is now arriving at the courthouse,” Jeffrey intoned solemnly into his microphone. “A large crowd has gathered, to make its feelings clear about this convicted criminal, now accused of adventurism of the worst ki
n
d.”

Just then Michael Laird, the PPP security chief, raced down the steps, followed by three policemen. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

Jeffrey fumbled for his press card, all innocence. “Man, I’m Natnet. They sent me.”

“Cut off those cameras,” Laird snapped. The policemen surrounded Jeffrey’s unresisting cameraman.

“Look, I just go where I’m told. The assignments come out of the advisory committee office,” Jeffrey protested.

“If Magistrate Andrews wants media coverage, she’ll notify the PPP information office,” Laird said.

“Hey, all right. Looks like a mistake to me.” He shook his head. “It’s a good story for the magistrate,” Jeffrey said. “Pack ’em up, boys.” His coverage seemed to be over. But it wasn’t. Stepping back into the crowd, Jeffrey kept his small, personal camera trained on the scene. He wondered how this tough-guy Laird would deal with those hundreds of people who wouldn’t stop coming, whose caring had never ceased.

When the door of the van flew open, Devin saw the light, a split second before the rush of sound hit him. No words, no chants, just a steady hand-clapping that was at once ominous and exhilarating. He knew now that it was for him, and he stood, tall and proud, gazing out at the sea of faces. The guards took him by the arms and hurried him into the silent courthouse.

Marion watched the arrival of the van from her chambers, high above the street, but when Devin emerged, she turned away. Andrei, beside her, studied the scene intently until Devin had been taken inside. Then he turned to Marion, who was fumbling with a cigarette, clearly shaken.

“I will not be intimidated,” she said firmly.

He made a little shrug. “No, but I trust you will consider all the facts.”

“What facts? That he’s dangerous? That’s all that mob proves.”

“Dangerous? Or a symbol who can be turned about, used to our advantage? Who could have imagined Abraham Lincoln as a patron of socialism?”

“How do you keep them straight?” she raged. “All your little games and deceptions? Don’t you see—the man must be e
limi
nated. He wants to destroy me, everything I’ve built. He wants . . .”

Andrei chose to ignore the allegations, pending further evidence. “Revenge?”

Her beautiful face hardened. It registered a dawning awareness. “You admire him, don’t you? You won’t help me because you want to protect him.”

“I do admire him,” Andrei said. “I don’t want to protect him.”

“You do,” Marion insisted. “You want to protect your little fantasy of American guts and American goodness.”

“Be rational. I am, if anything, protecting you. My work—”

“You had no right to take him out of party custody.” “Stop being a fool,” he said angrily. “You seek political leadership. You need popular support. But if you blindly pursue an act of revenge, the murder of your ex-husband, the father of your children, you will be despised. Even with Petya’s support, you will not survive.”

She wanted to scream. If Andrei was right, her two deepest passions, for Devin’s death and for her own political success, were in hopeless conflict.

“Kindly leave, now,” she said coldly. “I have to prepare for court.”

“This way,” the bailiff said, and pushed a door open.

Devin gazed into the huge, bright courtroom and was surprised to see that the chamber, except for the functionaries, was empty. He had been prepared for a show trial, but the rows of heavy benches were vacant and every sound bounced unimpeded off the paneled walls. He noticed an elegantly dressed man sitting alone in the rows of seats reserved for the public. After a moment, Devin recognized Andrei Denisov from his newspaper pictures.

The bailiff led Devin to the prisoner’s dock, a small platform, enclosed on three sides, where he would stand facing the judge. He saw, to his left, two lawyers, a man and a woman, at the prosecution table. But the defense table, and the judge’s bench, were vacant.

In the silence of the courtroom, Devin thought he could still hear the faint echo of the clapping outside the courthouse.

“All rise!” the bailiff called out.

Everyone stood, except for Andrei, who habitually ignored such conventions.

“The Fourth District Area Court is now in session. People’s Magistrate Marion Andrews presiding.”

She came in from the left in her black robes. Devin leaned forward, studying her, trying to recognize in that hieratic figure the flesh and blood he’d once loved. It was the first time he’d seen her in five years.

Marion refused to look at him. She took her chair, busied herself for a moment with papers, then glanced at the prosecutors. They rose.

“The prisoner has refused counsel?”

“Yes, your honor,” the prosecutor said, though no counsel had been offered.

After a long pause, she turned her eyes to him. She felt a jolt, to see how thin, how aged he was. Then she willed herself to do what must be done.

“It is my duty to inform you of your right to counsel—if not of your own choosing, then by the court.”

Devin smiled and shook his head, as if amused.

“Do you understand the seriousness of the charges against you?”

“I understand that you have the power to do what you wish to do.”

“This is a court of law. You will be treated fairly.” Devin closed his eyes. Court, trial, judge, prisoner, evidence—those words had no meaning in reality. Even to abide by the protocol was a mockery.

“For five years I’ve imagined the ways we might meet,” Devin said, heedless of the consequences. “What you’d look like, what we’d feel. Now here it is and it’s not what I expected at all.”

“I would expect you to try and turn this into something personal,” she said evenly.

“Isn’t it?”

“It is not,” she snapped. “You have very serious charges against you, Mr. Milford. You should be aware that a lack of decorum may prejudice the court.”

“I understand that you’re afraid to talk to me,” he said.

“How do you plead?”

“I don’t plead, Marion. I won’t be judged by you.” Her face reddened. She began to rise out of her chair. “This court has the power to judge you. And it will.”

“That means you win. But of course there’s no surprise in that.”

Devin did not know when he had felt so good, so pure. It had nothing to do with what might await him; all that mattered was right and wrong. No matter what her “court” might say, he knew he could not be more innocent, nor she more guilty.

“I pity you. It’s sad that you destroyed your life,” she continued, and her voice sounded calm. “And now you come back here to destroy the lives of others?”

“I’d say I’m a little late for that,” he replied. “You’ve done a fine job of destroying the children, of trying to twist and corrupt them—”

She slammed down her gavel. “You are in contempt of court!”